


his finger before his lips telling everyone to shut up

by Yahqauup



Category: One Piece
Genre: Ableism, Angst, F/F, M/M, Misogyny, Prostitution, Unhealthy Relationships, Water 7, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22789834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yahqauup/pseuds/Yahqauup
Summary: Paulie tries not to count the days since he discovered his friends were not his friends and he invariably fails.
Relationships: Paulie/Rob Lucci
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	his finger before his lips telling everyone to shut up

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [black velvet and heartwood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10934505) by [razbliuto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/razbliuto/pseuds/razbliuto). 



> edit: I was roaming on the Paulie/Rob Lucci tag when it came to me that this fic was totally inspired by razbliuto's black velvet and heartwood fic, which is much better than this and that I should have said so before. I am very sorry for not saying so before, because the best ideas from my fic are from that fic.

It’s been only a week (ten days and a half, actually), when Paulie looks at the blue blue blanket that they call sky and realizes that he misses them.

* * *

Once (three weeks and a half, only three days to make it a month), the shadow of a bird flung too low in his peripherical vision. Iceburg and his new tiny secretary are discussing about a new shipping of wood Galley-LA will need for a new project that it’s arriving two days late. His hands itch to take out a cigar and, repressing the urge to smoke, he wonders if he’s always been that easy to lie.

They had been finishing off a galleon. Paulie was checking the sails and Lucci was with his hammer giving the last touches to the taffrail. Those were the only moments he made noise, a hammering afterthought that Paulie ignored as he did with every bang from the Galley-LA docks.

The man he knew as Rob Lucci never talked. Paulie had made a game of that, tried to make him speak. Paulie used to smoke his cigar slowly in the mornings, savoured the taste and enjoyed the peaceful life he had fought for; he thought about stupid ways in which he could make Rob Lucci talk. Paulie used to turn himself into the laughingstock in more ways than he could have imagined.

The man Paulie knew as Rob Lucci used to insult him through a pigeon, white as a marine flag, a red tie that always made Paulie laugh when he imagined the man putting it on the bird. There must have been clues then, he knows, in the silences, in the things they didn’t say and the things Hattori said and maybe even in the fact that Hattori talked at all. Mostly, he is sure he prefers to not think about it.

* * *

Kaku used to be kind but not weak. Defined muscles under his clothes, he used to jump and fall from building to building. Some mornings, Paulie covered his eyes with his hands to look at him arriving at the docks with the sun still rising behind him. Kaku looked like a mere shadow, those times. He never thought much about that, then, plenty of weird guys in Galley-LA, himself included.

He thinks about it, now, about his co-workers idiosyncrasies and what they hide. It’s six months after _that_ day when Paulie realizes that, yes, despite the time, he stills misses them.

* * *

Paulie did not know Kalifa’s opinions on most things. He knew she was good at her work, even when he did not know what her work was at the time, and that she liked to wear too short skirts and call _Sexual Harassment_ when he pointed this to her.

For his birthday, she had given him a blanket. ''Do you like the colour?'', she had asked, pushing up her glasses. ''Blue, blue,'' had cooed Hattori, perched from Lucci's shoulder. Paulie used to think Kalifa liked Iceburg, by that time Paulie had been sure of a lot of things that turned out to be lies.

The salt of a cheap cigar seated in his tongue and the aftertaste of a too warm beer, the heat entered Blueno’s bar as it entered every building in Water Seven, it was unstoppable, getting into every nook of the city relentlessly until there was nowhere spared. Summer in the city had always been dangerous: _One year, when I was a kid_ , he had told the bartender, _70 people died in a week_. He had been drunk, probably, remembering about how he had found his neighbour sitting in the floor near their street, and how weird it had been, because he had not seemed the kind of guy who would sit on the dirt (and it had been dirty, everything had been dirty, then). Somebody, probably as drunk as him, had screamed _You are still a kid, Paulie!_ in his ear.

Two whole years later and he is in Iceburg’s office first thing in the morning. Mozu and Kiwi are there, Kokoro and Chinmey in tow, all of them laughing with matching grins that contrast how the guys are all open-mouthed, all of them looking at the Franky’s new wanted poster that displays a full robotic face and Paulie thinks that, despite, the weird looks, Iceburg must be happy to have news from Franky. It is two years later that Paulie realizes that he hasn’t heard of them in all that time and he still, somehow and against his own wishes, misses them.

* * *

He kissed close-mouthed and he never talked so Paulie thought, _he is mute_ and Paulie thought _he will never tell me how_ and now Paulie thinks _he would never have told me_ and he does not cry, fuck, he does not cry, damn it all, and he does not cry, not now and not ever and what about it, what about the memories left behind and what about the habits that they left in him. 

He kissed closed-mouthed and he never smiled and he always seemed angry and he always put his hand on Paulie's neck and Paulie maybe, perhaps, wished he squeezed a little bit just before kissing him (closed-mouthed) and maybe, sometimes, he wished he squeezed a little, just a little bit, after lips touched lips, when he did not know what to do with his tongue and his hands and his eyes, open, trembling eye-lids, now closed, now open.

Paulie almost sees him through his lashes, when the whores at the fifth hangar put their hands on his neck, because he is the one that pays and they say ''I've heard worse things, baby'', ''don't worry, babe, that is barely weird'' and he wishes he had told him _squeeze, baby_ and Lucci would have squeezed him so hard he would have died and now he wouldn’t be at hangar five with the working hands of a woman whose real name he doesn't know whom he trusts more than he would trust Lucci now to not kill him.

It’s two years, three months and twenty days later and he doesn’t count, hasn’t ever counted and isn’t still counting the days since his heart (didn’t) break like old rope bounded to the wrong mast and the wind carries a train whistle to the Galley-La offices and he breathes the smell of stagnant water and cleaning products and he breathes again, just because he can, because he refuses not to and jumps to a swaying vessel to start working. He learnt something, he thinks, distractedly. He didn’t learn a thing, he continues to think, distractedly. Doesn’t know if he wants to. An old dog learning new tricks: how to shut up someone who doesn’t talk, extracting the truth from someone who always lies. Things he never learnt. Things that now is too late to learn. He hears another whistle, low and long and he breathes again, low and long, and tells himself to shut up and look at the pretty clouds in the blue blue sky.

One looks like a never-ending railway.

* * *

He dreams Lucci’s hands in his breast, pressing fingers going down when he wants them to go up, lips murmuring words he cannot hear into his skin, tattooing his secrets and marking Paulie forever. Paulie dreams silence, his own saliva choking him after a clever turn of Lucci’s fingers under the sheets, the man smiling proudly; the beard scratches his neck, then there’s a bite that hurts and, finally, a hand follows and squeezes.

That will leave a mark, Paulie thinks, and there is no way he can hide it. Iceburg will ask and he will have no answer to give because there is nothing he wants to tell, maybe they will think that a debt-collector has finally gotten to him, maybe he should stop betting and putting money he does not have on the table, but he is too old now to change and Lucci is kissing him, lips closed, Lucci is killing him, lips closed, Lucci does not exist as he knows him, silent.

He looks for the pigeon, thinks he always liked Hattori better than Lucci and knows that he is lying to himself, tries to hide his fingers on black hair and find the scars he has been told are on his back, wonders what would have happened if he had known, if he had seen them, touched them, put his mouth on them, scratched them with his well-cut nails as an orgasm was yanked from him.

Two years, nine months and three days in, Paulie wakes up with his own hand around his neck and a wet cushion and hopes he has lost the count, but he still remembers screaming _You’re fired_ and it is so easy to count the days since then that he does it without realizing what he is doing until he has already done it. It’s two years, nine months and three days (he has not lost the count) and Paulie gets up to the sound of his city coming in from the open window.

* * *

Paulie always wanted to work on construction, he had told to Kaku and Lucci. Lucci hadn’t said anything, because he never said anything, but Hattori flapped his wings and asked ‘’Always?’’ that Paulie had imagined meant something and Kaku had weaved some story about how he _liked_ working at the docks, liked being a foreman. Paulie had told them about attending Puffing Tom’s baptism. He had remembered running after the train but did not say it.

A whole year has passed, and then eleven months and a day more, when Paule scratches where his beard grows with a lazy finger and decides he must supervise the Puffing Ice. Blue Station is already prepared for the inauguration and everything is already finished and planned for, that little secretary absurdly competent. He has not much to do, and later, he buys a guy who moans too loud and giggles too much, who asks, voice too high, ‘’Do you like it, big guy?’’ as if it matters what Paulie likes or not, so he mouths _lie to me lie to me_ against his collarbones as if it means something, a ‘’What do you want baby?‘’ heavy in his ears when he closes his eyes and wonders if this is worth it, and Paulie licks his lips and doesn’t answer, closing his mouth to not let go of his desires.

* * *

Three years and sixteen days later, Paulie enters his boss' office to find Iceberg’s new secretary red-faced, half hiding her face behind the papers he suspects are for him to read over. She is looking at the big desk, from where he can hear squeaking.

Paulie supposes she’s ashamed to have been seen so interested in their boss old pet. He asks the new secretary if she likes Tyrannosaurus, uncaring about the answer.

Tyrannosaurus has been here almost as much time as they have been gone, he remembers. _And good riddance_ , he always reminds himself to think.

She denies it, but it turns out inconvincibly. Paulie feels for her, suddenly, as he hasn’t felt for a long time, he can not be sure if she is telling the truth or not, maybe she is scared of the mouse, maybe she likes little animals, maybe she was thinking about another thing altogether. Paulie carefully does not bite on his unlightened cigar and lays his hand on her head:

‘’Don’t worry,’’ he reassures her, smiling. ‘’I’ve always been easy to lie to.’’


End file.
